Storm in a Teacup (14 page)

Putting my car in park, I shut off the engine and douse myself with sunblock. Out in the daytime again. No one here's going anywhere. I grab my scabbard and step out of my car. Sometimes I wish Mediators had badges, but then I remember that my eyes are an unnatural violet and that's enough for anyone who's hoping to identify us.

I pick my way around the stopped traffic.

"What's going on?" A guy calls down from a massive truck that incongruously purrs like a kitten. When witches found a way to replace diesel, the air got cleaner and trucks like this got a whole lot less macho.

"I don't know." I look up at the guy. He's got a bushy mustache and a dip of chew in his cheek.

"You a Mediator?"
 

"Yep."

"Well, why don't you go find out, you hear?"

I hate when people tell me to do something I'm already doing. "What, you think I'm just out for a stroll with my parasol?" I twirl my scabbard over my shoulder as I walk away. I ain't no Scarlett O'Hara.

Most of the people back toward my car look annoyed, but the closer I get to the three police cars, the more faces I see melt into concern and then into fear. The blood is clearly visible by the time I approach the first cop, and his face has a greenish cast to it.
 

"Ma'am, please go back to your vehicle and find an alternate route. This won't be open for some time."

I take a few more steps and look him in the eye. "Something I can help with, Officer?"

"Ain't no demon what did this, Mediator. Broad daylight, sure as sugar."

I squint at the sun. Not a demon. Daylight. Again I see the body and detached head of the creature I killed last night.
 

"How many officers are on this call?" I don't know if he'll tell me.

"Six. Two per car."

"Do you know what happened here?"

"Attempted car-jacking."

I look at the SUV on its side and the spatters of blood on the rear window. At my skeptical glance, the cop fumbles on.

"Car stopped at the light, guy comes up and attacks them."

"And knocked a two thousand pound vehicle on its side?"

"We don't know yet."

I shift my weight to my left foot. "Is it okay if I go take a look?"

He opens his mouth, already shaking his head, but a scream cuts him off.

Gunshots punctuate the scream as it gurgles to a halt.
 

I don't wait to find out if Officer Car-Jacking here gives me the go ahead. I leap over the hood of his vehicle and take off toward the scream at a sprint. I catch one glimpse of the driver of the SUV. Neck savaged, thigh ripped apart, but the thing must have gotten interrupted, because he didn't stop to rip off a drumstick this time. It.
It
didn't stop, gods damn it.

There's a condemned building on the corner of Old Demonbreun, and I whip around the corner. The gunshots grow louder, and there's a helluva lot of shouting happening.

"Officer down! I repeat, officer down!" A female cop two inches shorter than me hollers into her walkie-talkie as I run down the alley. She sees me coming and trains her gun on me. "Freeze!"

"Mediator! Get your gun out of my face!"

She lowers the gun and holsters her walkie. "We've got a guy who just took down two officers in there. I shot him three times, and he didn't stop."

Good to know. Though probably not for the two officers. I unsheath my sword. "Where is it?"

She points around the corner to a door that's been ripped off its hinges. I nod.
 

"Where are the other two cops? Guy at the light back there said there were six of you."

"They circled around the building to see if there was another way in."

They could be dead too. I haven't heard any other screams, but these things are fast as lightning and slippery as a cowpie. "Listen. You go back to the light. Call for backup. And you guys really should be trained with blades." Guns only really work for humans. Any other kind of person won't die that easily. And demons don't die easy at all.

She looks like she thinks she ought to protest, but she turns and runs.

I take a deep breath. The alley smells like pee and decomposing feet. I hold my breath and listen.

Not much reaches my ear. No wood-on-cast-iron scraping this time, no fluttering breathing. Just silence.

I'm being watched.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

If I'm the only one moving, it's because everyone else is dead or out of earshot. The cops are out of earshot. Which leaves the creature.
 

There's something inherently creepy about knowing you're in the sights of something that wants to eat you. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but every time it makes all my hair stand up and the tips of my fingers go numb. I clutch my sword tighter.
 

I look up. You'd be surprised about how many people die because they forget there are places above them where nasty shit can hide. But here in the alley, there's nothing. No fire escape, no scaffolding. And nothing on the roof. Which leaves the door.

I can see inside it, which means the creature is somewhere in a direct line on the opposite side of the opening. There are no windows into the building. If it's watching me, which I'm sure it is, it's somewhere straight through that door.

My phone is in my butt pocket, and I pull it out, only hearing the sound of my hand on fabric. I unlock the screen and touch the applications bar. There's one I'm looking for.

No, there's no app for creature killing. Don't be ridiculous.

Brightest Flashlight Ever. I hit the button and aim the flashlight at the door as fast as I can.

Two bright flashes of orange eyeshine, not five feet inside the darkened building.

This time I'm ready. The thing flies at me in one leap from inside the door, a dark blur that I almost don't have time to respond to. I slice my sword in front of me and feel it make contact with the creature's stomach. It roars, but doesn't jump back like any normal sentient being.
 

These things do have intestines.
 

I've sliced deep enough to see them, and as it lurches at me, they bubble out of the slash in its abdomen. I thrust once, through where the heart should be. It convulses and falls backward. I jerk my sword out and lunge forward, beheading it with one stroke.

The legs flail once and go limp. This one is dark skinned. Its face is covered in blood from ear to ear. The chest is pocked with holes from bullets. I have no way of knowing how much the bullets slowed it down — if at all.
 

Calling the creature an it is easier having fought a second one. They seem to have no conscience, only an animalistic need to feed. My phone is miraculously unscathed. I didn't even drop it, and the light is still on. I step into the threshold of the building and shine it in.

The first thing the beam touches is a bared penis and scraps of navy blue fabric. One of the downed officers. I feel a momentary surge of pity for the cop and relief that even though his leg was ripped off, he still has his junk in place. It's an absurd thought when there's been more carnage in the past week of my life than the last three months together.
 

There are enough body parts in this building to make more than two humans. The creature kept the torsos mostly intact, but it took off limbs like it was fighting with itself over the Thanksgiving turkey legs.
 

I've taken down two. There could still be twenty more of these things out there.
 

I have to find them.

I don't go farther into the building than that. I've seen enough. I shine the light around the hollowed out shell of an edifice, sword ready in case I get another flash of orange, but nothing rushes me from the dimness. It was alone. A tiny good sign. The place used to have carpet, but it's been pulled back or clawed apart in places, and I choose a scrap at random to clean my sword.

When I step back into the alley, the female officer is back, gun aimed at the door but eyes glued to the corpse in front of it.

"Did you do this?"
 

I nod at her. "There are more bodies inside. Not just cops."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"Is it a demon?"

"Close enough." I catch her eye. I don't know what makes me go on. "You might get a call from Alamea or Gregor. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell them you saw me. Or if you have to mention a Mediator, tell them it was a blonde. Or a dude." There are enough willowy blonde Mediators in Nashville. My orange hair is the standout.
 

"Why?"

"Ever have your case passed up the chain of command? Detective gets it instead? Or the Feds?" I wait till she nods. "I can't let this one go."

"Of course, sir." She gives me a tight smile.

Sir. That'll do just fine.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I stop by Hazel Lottie's house on my way home.

Okay, it's not on my way. It's about twenty minutes out of the way, but I stop anyhow. She's boarded up her windows. One quick glance around shows me why – one of her neighbors is outside, sweeping glass off the stoop. Break-in? Hazel seems to have some forethought. Her porch light is on, and I knock three times before I remember that old people sometimes go to bed before suppertime.

She answers the door in ten seconds. Her hair's in rollers, but she's still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that says, "If you're selling bullshit, stand in the next line."

Hazel settles me in with a glass of orange juice, though her hand trembles a bit as she sets it down on a bleach-spotted pocket coaster. She's not drinking anything this time.

"I'm glad you're okay. Lawdy." She says it after a long pause in which I slurp down half my orange juice. "If you're here, you must have some news."

I set the juice cup down. I don't know how exactly to tell Hazel that Lena went crazy hell cultist and got herself impregnated with a beast that's ravening through the populace, but something in my face must say part of it.

Hazel's eyes fill. "Did you find Lena? Honey, you gotta tell me something. These old nerves aren't what they were."

"I found her. But you're not going to like how."

She scrunches her eyes shut, and they almost disappear into the wrinkles of her face. "Don't tell me what happened. I don't want to know. Just tell me if she's alive."

Really not alive. But all I say is, "No. She's not alive."

Hazel puts one hand over her face and waves me off with the other. "Please go."

I stand and walk to the door.

My half-empty orange juice sits on an old back pocket.

I don't know what it would be like to find out that someone you treated like family started worshiping hellkin. I don't have any family myself. When you're born with eyes like mine, you don't get a say in that. You're raised by Mediators, schooled with Mediators, trained by Mediators. That's not to say that I grew up without love. They discovered a long time ago that if you raise a trained killer without any affection, you end up with murderers.

But I've never had to worry about family consorting with demons.
 

I always imagined it's painful. Frightening. A betrayal. Now that the woman who gave birth to me could be guilty of just that, I realize that being right ain't always full of strawberry shortcake and sweet tea.

We don't get much of a childhood. From the time we're able to walk, we're taught to use a sword. They start out with wood, but they become metal soon enough. I got my first dagger at five.
 

The funny thing I've learned from norms — human, witch, and morph alike — is that the children's games are the same whether you're a Mediator or not. All the little Mittens play tag and hide-and-seek and capture the flag. What are those games if not training? Chase, hide, evade.
 

Sounds a lot like my life.

I should probably do something more interesting than go to work, come home, patrol, kill, bathe, bed. Like go to happy hour or have girlfriends or date or hell, go to Magic Marco's Karaoke where he makes you sound just like whatever sensation you're singing. I hear it's pretty funny to watch a prissy church girl bellow Aretha.